A Tale of Two Senators on Judges and Court Packing

Sen. Mark Pryor’s vote in
favor of Obamacare, without which that legislation would not have passed the
Senate, should be enough to cause his defeat in the 2014 Arkansas race Senate.
And, at the end of the day, I suspect it will be.

However, there is also the
matter of President Obama’s judicial nominees. Pryor has not voted against the
confirmation of a single one. Not even far left-winger Goodwin Liu, whom the
Senate did not confirm.

To be sure, a respectable
school of thought holds that the U.S. president should have his judicial
nominees confirmed without regard to their ideology, especially when we’re
talking about a lesser court than the Supreme Court. But Pryor does not hold
this view. He voted to sustain the filibuster of Miguel Estrada’s nomination.
Even the Washington Post found that a vote to confirm Estrada was “an easy
call.”

The Judicial Crisis Network has gone after Pryor for
this, especially in light of the current court packing controversy. Here is the ad.

Mark Pryor’s office has
circulated this document in response to the video, explaining that he did not
vote for three of President Obama’s judicial nominees. Well, he ain’t a lawyer
for nothin’. Each of the three votes cited by his office involved nominations
for which he didn’t vote at all, and which were confirmed without opposition.

Sheri Chappell: 90-0 (Pryor
did not vote)

Edward Davila: 93-0 (Pryor
did not vote)

Joseph Greenaway: 84-0
(Pryor did not vote)

In other words, every single
time Senator Pryor voted on a judicial nominee, his vote was to support
President Obama, and he does not deny that fact. Or, to put it another way: He
has never voted against one of President Obama’s judicial nominees. None. Zero.

Senator
Orrin Hatch exposes Democrat hypocrisy on the issue and the importance of
fighting against President Obama’s court packing efforts.

Democrats opposed more
Republican D.C. Circuit appointments in 2006 because "written decisions
per active judge" and "total number of appeals filed" had
declined. Since then, these benchmarks have declined by 27 percent and 18
percent, respectively. D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland confirms that
cases scheduled for argument per active judge have also declined by 11 percent
since then. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the D.C.
Circuit ranks last among all circuits in new appeals coming in and resolved
appeals going out. Democrats also opposed more Republican D.C. Circuit
appointments in 2006 because judicial emergency vacancies had not been filled.
Judicial emergencies have increased by 90 percent since then, and the
percentage of those vacancies with nominees has declined from 60 percent to
only 47 percent.

So what explains these
unnecessary nominations? President Obama said after his re-election that he is
not going to wait for Congress to act, but will take unilateral executive
action to implement his agenda. The D.C. Circuit, more than any other, reviews
decisions and actions by the executive branch agencies implementing that
agenda.

It is no wonder, then, that
the Senate majority leader has said that he wants to "switch the majority"
on the D.C. Circuit. One liberal activist told The Washington Post that
"the president's best hope for advancing his agenda is through executive
action, and that runs through the D.C. Circuit."

. . .The better course would
be to put his agenda before the American people by putting it through Congress
and to appoint judges to courts that really need them.

The problem with putting the agenda before the people is
that, like Senator Pryor, it is likely to lose.
Thank you to Senator Hatch and other Republican Senators for standing
strong against President Obama’s efforts to pack the DC Circuit.